Getting my popcorn ready for this comment section. 🍿😂

I see the accuracy with which you share the detailed measurements, the influence of the quality components and the size of the cable, this is a lesson that we really need to take note of, thank you for all the enlightenment.

Thanks for having the balls to do this!😆 I became convinced 15 years ago that speaker cables make a difference, not when it comes to finesse, but on pure electrical properties and capabilities. I had the typical name brand 150watt receiver. It played nicely with a lamp cord equivalent wire from Monster. BUT, when I braided up a well known cat5 recipe (of high capacitance) the receiver choked and shutdown within a minute or so. Then I built a high power MOSFET amp. With the Monster wire the sound was decent, but a bit thin. When I put the cat5 on the MOSFET amp the sound was simply spectacular in every category. As I've built better and better equipment over the past decade it becomes easier to address finesse, and to be able to sculpt finer details with my wire choices.

Great work! Really appriciate your efforts to bring some light to the cable discussions ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Great overview of cables and really fascinating to hear how different types of cables measure and sound.

Brilliant work and insights Jaap. Now go take that holiday! I recently bought LHY SW-10 switches and connected everything with the top Finisar SFP units and wow, what an upgrade. Every single digital and analogue cable I change alters the sound clearly, so needs some experimentation.

Congratulations for the outstanding work you have done here. Thank you very much. Cheers

Thank you for all your good work. Sincerely, Ivan

Thanks for your summary. I’ll check out your paper.

Amazing work. Thank you so much!!!

Outstanding test!

Amazing work. Thank you so much for this! I love you guys! I'm wondering if you would consider reducing the sample size to maybe just 2 of your favorites and 2 of your least favorites (the most different sounding cables)and doing all those extra phase measurements you mentioned.

Thanks for this huge effort, guys! love to follow your findings. I bought a few jmyears back the Qed xt 40 , nothing fancy , but a decent copper cable and it made a huge positive difference. That everyone can hear. Not that the old silver plated was a bad cable. Just did not suit that amp speaker combination.

Fantastic job!

Great work!

An absolute heroic undertaking,, pfhhhh,, 🤪 Thank you ever so much for your time and work,, 💖🙏💖

Outstanding. You are among the rare few that qualitatively and quantitatively measure AND listen, and then even measure again. Thank you for your painstaking, scientific, and comprehensive approach to these tests 🙏

Interesting video. I'm glad you mentioned Ricable at 9:27! I use them and love it!

Great research, very inspiring.

To all concerned, thank you for your hard work. My small 13 x 11.5 ft room might have nine speakers and two musical subwoofers. However, my priority has always been to have an exceptionally quiet room! Hence, after changing all my analogue, digital, and even some power cables multiple times. For my listening room, the shielding of a cable takes priority. Looking forward to your findings. After a thoroughly deserved holiday, of course

In my second audio system, with the computer as a source and my modified KEF Q100 coaxial loudspeakers in near field, I have been using Kimber Kable 8PR since 2012. I could not resist the offer of €7/m from a professional store in Barcelona. I noticed a great improvement in everything compared to normal 2.5mm oxygen-free ones, especially in the bass. I have them finished now with KácSa connectors, which is the Hungarian manufacturer behind Furutech, and much more affordable prices. KáCsa BP-6201BR - BFA. That GEOMETRY is crucial is well known, no surprise. What also seems to have a lot of influence is the coverage. POLYETHILENE in 8PR and 12PFR. The other geometry to consider is star-quad, but I suspect KK's is the best. Danny Richie (GR-Research) cables have the same geometry and polyethylene as KK PR. And its cables for the the speakers inside are also POLYETHILENE. 👉Danny Richie: Finally! DIY Audiophile Speaker Cable Kits! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/esyahK2pyrqlfnk.html

I used to be an electronic tech that worked in a component test lab. I tested transformers and capacitors to the Nth degree. An interesting shootout would be a comparison between say electrostatics and cables, horns and cables, ribbons and the different cables to see if one cable sounds better with a different type of speaker, so your viewers can get an Idea which cable might be best for there system and ears.

The connectors matter far more than the cable as long as the cable is copper which is the standard now anyways. If you have concerns upgrade the RCA connectors then stop thinking about it.

Good Work!! My personal experience I clip connectors and and go bare wire. Who knows what connector are made out of .( It's always a negative impact on sound) Interlinks are connector failure point prone as well. And proper shields as which in is terminated and how.

Interesting finding with the Kimber cable. I own the 8PR and I like it.

This is really excellent work guys! Hey, curious, were there any silver cables in your testing?

Thank you!

Shooting that signal down through a freq variant transfer, ... encountering influential reactance of inductance on one side, capacitance on the other, plus voltage drop as a by product, ... Of course cables impact the signal. Simply look at a Heyser Spiral to see what the signal is up against. All that's just the cable! Add connectors and the potential for additional corruptive influence increases. Nice work Much appreciated

You are awesome! 🙌

Great work..I have had Cheap and expensive..Very little difference in sound.If you want silence..Interconnects do make a difference..But ..If there is one area to focus on it's the preamp..use a quality passive preamp!..You will be amazed .In the end ..I'd rather spend the extra money for cables on good quality Vinyl...>Enjoy the music!

I have had very good experiences with Vovox and DNM reson cables. I bought used speaker cables for 35 euros and RCA cables, also for 35 Euros. Sounds better than Kimber VS!!! Very spectacular! Solid core "bell wire". Thanks for your wonderful videos! Greetings from Bavaria

Awesome work! I am really interested in how mass of the terminus affects the cable. I would be interested to add that into your next series of tests

I have owned many, many speaker cables and the Golden Helix from Mapleshade Audio is my favorite. They sound awesome on my system.

Howdy. Nice. I would like to add that it is assumed Hi End gear is used and the listeniing room is good. Regards.

Good job!

When I swapped my mismatched braided copper, clear jacket speaker cables with Mediabridge Ultra 12AWG cables from Amazon i noticed a definite tonal change - seemed the whole frequency range lowered (more bass,. less shrilly highs). Even if makes no difference, I decided to do the same with my subwoofer cables - 2 different brands and thicknesses - again with identical Mediabridge Ultra subwoofer cables. Just though symmetry would be helpful. I should get them tomorrow morning. $20k is more than I make in a year. I wouldn't buy those unless (even if) I won the lottery! I have a mixed 7.2.4 system with Polk satellite surrounds and Klipsch everything else. Not high end, but I really enjoy what I have.

Jaap, I haven’t read any of the comments (though I can easily guess what some will include) but I first wanted to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU for putting in such an extraordinary amount of time, effort and hard work to do all of this 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 Second, you look exhausted man! So please try not to be so hard on yourself and take that well deserved break and regain your energy. Finally, I know you say you don’t care, but I can see it in your face that it must get to you (at least a little bit) when you get moronic comments from blinkered haters, especially when you’ve just put so, so much hard work into doing this, and sharing the fruits of your labour with all of us (for free!). People must remember that they’re not paying you for your time or for the privilege of sharing the knowledge you’re putting out there, which is there to be gained by anyone listening with an open mind - whatever decisions they may come to for themselves. Respect is so, so important - even for the people you maybe don’t agree with. We can all learn something from anyone, even if that isn’t the same as what you’re told. It would be a pretty dull and less productive World to live in if people stopped sharing knowledge for fear of having to deal with a deluge of unreasonable, disrespectful or hateful comments directed at them for their efforts! Anyway, I know you already know this - but it does no harm to remind everyone. Take good care Jaap and thanks again 👍

The only rime I heard a difference in speaker cables were after I changed my 20 years old cales to new ones.Probably because of the old speakers being oxidised over the years

Thank you for a fine and serious initiative. I have more or less given up on finding the solution, but have gathered a lot of experience about which materials sound good, have lifelike sound and a realistic sound image etc.,eJ I optimise my parasitic components, which are everywhere in our devices and cables. The sound signature issue applies not only to cables but to all passive components. An alternative way to find differences could be to measure all the data we know from capacitors, coils and resistors etc. instead of looking for measurable changes in the signal from the whole cable. However, the mystery remains how these parasitic components cause such large changes in what we hear We can measure precision but not sound signature timbre soundstage rhythm fidelity, but using the right materials for parasitic components and components in general can make the sound more natural along with the construction, whose precision we can easily measure, it's harder to measure everything that really matters timbre soundstage fidelity rhythm , that we can only experience. Added: I recommend that instead of the usual hi-fi parameters evaluate whether a violin, piano, organ etc. sounds more or less natural and has the right size in the soundstage, that's what hi-fi is all about, but it requires a high quality unmanipulated music recording produced with few microphones and that is not easy to find. On the other hand, sound differences will be more apparent than in typical hi-fi recordings.

Thank you guys for your work & efforts, it is much appreciated. I hope you have a great break away from all this testing

I want to share my experience and a question: I have had the same speakers since 2001 and used very cheap cables. My speakers can be bi-wired and since I had enough speaker cable I decided to bi-wire the speakers, coming from one outlet of the amplifier. To my amazement the sound improved a lot. Jaap stated that a low impedance is very important and by doubling the cables I lowered the impedance. Could this be the reason why the sound improved? It was still the same cheap cable. Now I have proprietary speaker cables which sound again much better than the cheap ones, so I am happy.

Thank you for the test and it clarifies for me how some of the differences I hear correlate with measurements. What about power cables? In my experience over the years they can make more of a difference to the final sound than any other cable. I'd be interested in your results if you did such a test.

Hi thanks for your interesting video.

I'm all-in on exploring what really matters when it comes to accurate and emotionally-moving music reproduction. I'm a drummer/percussionist and saxophone musician. So, from the MUSIC RECORDING & PRODUCTION viewpoint, I think it might be revealing and telling to pose, or AT LEAST CONSIDER & CONTEMPLATE, the following questions and information. From my many years of being a musician, IME, the Professional audio Recording/Mixing/Mastering Engineers that Produce ALL of the Music that we Actually LISTEN TO (including "audiophile" recordings) would use an *EQ* or other studio equipment to achieve "a more full and rounded sound" OR any other desirable effect or change in sonic quality or sonic character of the music they are creating/producing. Essentially NONE of these professionals would "SWAP" or "Change" their Speaker Cables OR Power Cables to do this, or to "lower the distortion and noise floor". Go look behind the Multitudes of inter-connected rack-mount studio gear in any of the most respected and revered pro studios, including their very expensive multi-channel studio-grade ADCs, DACs, and precision Master Word Clocks, and you will find that ALL of this gear is connected to the AC Mains power using the Generic UL/CE/NEMA listed & approved Power Cable that was Supplied By The Manufacturer. In my many years I have NEVER seen a studio or recording engineer use any type of "special" or "exotic" aftermarket power cables or speaker cables. @AlphaAudio Jaap, I'm curious what type of power cable Eelco Grimm provides with the Grimm Audio MU2??? For all of the EXTENSIVE research, design, and engineering that was put into producing and manufacturing such a high-end and expensive component, do you think Eelco would purposely sacrifice or "Gimp" its performance by supplying it with a "basic" off-the-shelf IEC power cable? SPOILER!: Look at the internal product photos of this unit on the Grimm Audio website. This unit is shown with a generic CE/IEC/NEMA AC power socket on the back panel. Now look at the INTERNAL Power Wiring that is connected to the internal PSU at the side corner of the blue PCB. Surprise! It's your basic off-the-shelf power cable and wiring...not braided, not oversized, not silver conductors, and no special shielding, etc. ...BASIC "off-the-shelf" power cord and wire! THEN take a look at the USB connection! For THIS type of device, this particular cable SHOULD BE of the Upmost Importance, correct??? And yet, Eelco chose a basic/standard 26 AWG USB cable...AND it isn't even "hard-wired" to the USB socket/jack on the back of the unit! The rear-panel USB jack has another USB Type-B female jack on the Inside that a separate, STANDARD and basic male USB Type-B "printer cable" is plugged into! I don't know of ANY other high-end device where I would think uber high-end cables would be chosen and absolutely necessary, yet they are clearly off-the-shelf and "nothing special"! There are usually Tens to Hundreds of studio-grade AC-powered equipment in any professional studio, and for some strange reason [/s], 99.9% of them don't believe that changing the power cables OR speaker cables will improve their performance or sound. Hmmmm? What do they all KNOW that we don't??? Honest question: IF the professional engineers that Record & Produce ALL of the Music that we Actually Listen To do not "swap" their speaker cables or power cables in order to achieve some sort of "synergy" or a particular sound characteristic in the music, should YOU as a listener bother to do this or worry about this??? In addition, roughly 90% of music is now produced using Active, Self-Powered Studio Monitor systems with Built-In Class D amplification (OMG!) where there are ZERO external speaker cables that can be swapped. AND, those Active, Powered Professional Studio Monitors are connected to the AC Mains using the manufacturer-supplied GENERIC POWER CABLE. So where does that leave this debate??? For example, quite a few respected Mastering Engineers use the *Kii Audio Three* active/powered/DSP monitoring system, or other similar industry-standard active studio monitors that have built-in amplification. NONE that I know or have seen have ever used anything but the supplied AC power cables, and they obviously can't and don't feel the need to change the internal speaker wiring. In fact, the manufacturers of these Multiple Thousand $$$$$ studio monitors would probably void the warranty IF they found that the speaker wiring had been changed by the user. I would guess [sic] that MOST mastering engineers probably have pretty d@mn good ears and are Trained or have learned "how to listen" and how to evaluate or judge the Sound Quality to a much higher degree than most common listeners. Many of the best engineers are musicians themselves and obviously play/perform with many other musicians who play ALL TYPES of instruments. Therefore they KNOW exactly how most acoustic instruments sound in REAL LIFE and IF what they are hearing out of their Calibrated Monitors is Lifelike, or NOT. ;) In addition, tracking (recording) engineers have the live musicians and their actual instruments in the studio as a direct reference. But again, [for SOME reason] the ACTUAL RECORDING PROFESSIONALS and MUSICIANS do NOT feel the need or choose to use "special" aftermarket power cables or speaker cables. Try this: Pick your favorite and best sounding album or recording, then look up who the tracking, mixing, and mastering engineers were that worked on the recording(s) and ask each of them, "What Power Cables Do You Use"? They'll most likely respond with a funny and perplexed look on their face, LOL, like "WTF?". Sure, SOME of them MAY have a preference for using certain balanced XLR microphone or signal cables, but you will find that the vast majority are "okay" with using standard Mogami or similar "basic" brand-name cables. HOWEVER, ALL of these studio engineering Professionals DO use MANY different types (and multiple instances of) EQUALIZATION in order to achieve "a more full and rounded sound" OR to achieve any other desired sonic characteristic. And yet, the majority of "audiophools" still think that EQ is evil and/or always detrimental. 🤷‍♂

Brilliant

Bedankt voor jullie moeite en het delen hiervan👍 Wat een hoop werk moet dat geweest zijn👌 Het Audioquest DBS "systeem" voegt nadelige invloed uit op het signaal volgens Audioholics...

Thanks!

Wish you had included Furutech's DSS 4.1 cable also, but I know they are hard to get a testsample from.. I've tried a lot of speakercables, but the DSS 4.1 is superior to all others I've ever heard 😊

What was your favorite cable under 1000 that is good for taming sibilance. Been testing speaker cables all month over here. I felt the same way thinking that the speaker cable would make a bigger difference than an interconnect and I was wrong :))

Where are the comments beginning with "I am an electrical engineer..." ?!

Appreciate the time & effort put into your testing. Would really like to see the same effort put into blind A+B testing of cables against each other. Not trying to invalidate anything you did, just not convinced in a blind test there will be a statistically significant percentage of people whom can identify difference between cheap & expensive speaker cable. However, it's an individuals right to spend their money on whatever makes them happy... 😴

I would have thought that shielding was less important for speaker cable than it is for RCA cables (interconnects) owing to the proximity of RCA cables to other electrical equipment and other cables, especially power cables.

The actual material of the conductors and connectors will have a sound affect too.

I found this helpful when trying to understand cables if you research Quantum electrodynamics it explains a lot of what happens in a conductor write down to cable burning being a real thing. Best of all this is real science that proves cables to make a difference. It's a very very good read but heavy with it being quantum dynamics

It’s not the matter of whether the cable makes difference or not. Because it does (better or worse). What matters is whether that price of the cable makes sense to that difference. Also as more expensive sound systems you have, the more likely you will end up with fancy looking cable which has gold and silver inside. 😅 You don’t expect a ferrari owner to use cheap 17” rims… You don’t have to spend much money on cables at all to enjoy audio. But it does affect.

I want to see you test fuses.

What instrument are you using to test the cables for noise and variations of signal degradation?

Thanks for going out there and providing and publishing experience and data. This is one of few unbiased channels out there for audio.

Impedance is inconsequential in cables with most speakers.

Yeah, true, cable matters, I found out too and that sucks. Started using Wisa wireless system (Buchardt in my case) few years back, and I think I will stick with wireless in the future... XD Funny thing is providing clean power to the Wisa hub can still improve audio quality too, man, PCM really is some hard to deal with ancient tech.

That’s also my experience that the impact of speaker cables mostly isn’t as high as it oftentimes is with interconnects. Nevertheless speaker cables DO matter as well. It shouldn’t be the weakest link in the chain.

You forgot one of the most important manufacturer: Cardas

I can only praise your willingness to do all this testing. Mainly because the differences are small, even insignificant for most users, most of them do not even hear the differences. One is the tests, and the other is the use of the same cables in a home hi-fi system... where everyone has different hi-fi devices, room acoustics and also hearing abilities.

I will appreciate a video or artical based on 1-2 options per price range...

question with the noise what are we looking at ? 2 pictures of a scope without scale , the measurement are only good with a reference of what we are looking at.

Yes, but can you hear it in a controlled ABX test?

Great work. Unfortunately, the lower part of the the impedance/phase vs frequency graphs are quite dark, making it sometimes very difficult to read the legend.

Every piece of the system including cables and the room only adds distortion. Just choose the distortion that pleases you

Great! Finally we got proof that cables can affect on FR.... at least when freq. is higher than 4 MHz.

Interesting research! I didn't believe in cable making a difference until i tried few cables and some made a really big influence! System was very entry level also. So from my experience with my system (had maybe 10-15 cables in last 20y), most cables don't make a big or any difference, but few do.

It would be helpful to include the descriptions of the differences you heard instead of just stating they sounded dramatically different. Please make another video letting people know what sound characteristics change with cable swapping . So that way they can now understand what to listen for. 😊

Like you I'm a little surprised about your findings of interconnect vs speaker cables, that is, which seems to have a greater impact - - subjectively I've not had that same experience in my own system.

In regards to phase: Do you think heat retention has anything to do with the differences between cables?

im just here for the comments..

Nice video! My guess is that not only specifications of cables make a difference, but also how they interact with specifications of electronics and drivers. Here VDH Revelation connected to Wilson Duettes were replaced by Cloud 3T and noticed both aspects you have commented, gain reduced and also treble. But sound of instruments and voices got a new dimension of reality not found with Revelation cables. Also calmness with music, Revelation are more "nervous". Sorry but it is really hard to put in words.

I've discovered that I am not an audiophile. It seems the prevalent orthodoxy is for big, transparent, and detailed performance, which to my ears is very thin sounding. I prefer a more fleshy and cohesive sound. To each his own.

Think of conductors as a prism that separates an electromagnetic wave into a spectrum of frequencies. The structure and composition of the prism affects the speed and dynamic range of each frequency.

No Inakustik?

Главное верить !

Audiomica was the 1000 EUR winner in your system?

How much does cable length matter. Some say the shorter the better. So monoblocks with short cables might be best.

Congratulations on a job very well done. 👏 Cables is like food, each to there own taste.

I wonder what the test results would have been when using an amp with a crazy low output impedance (.000065)/ super high damping factor (123076 @ 8 ohms) like the Eigentakt? And if there would have been an even larger difference with yohr listening tests, or if yhe influence still wont be as big as interconnects? Interesting stuff for sure.

Yes, they matter but the point of diminishing returns is quickly reached well before the $100 mark.

so by 2024 we are just now getting new info about music equipment? Hasn't people lived, died, han entire generations of life, of using music equipment and we somehow didn't figure this speaker wire subject out?

Man, you scared me to death. 1000 euros for a good cable!? It's more than my amp!

0.6 Ohm???? 0,0175Ohm/m/mm2 very small section and large lengths. Otherwise bad design !!!

radically improves the sound if the cable is placed in a pipe with helium. the inert and lightest gas in contact with electrons in a copper conductor produces the lowest noise level compared to air. The ideal solution would be to place the cable in a vacuum, but this is very expensive.

Just too many factors to consider when try to sync a speaker cable to your rigg, your room, your rigg of course, no rigg sounds alike, some speakers simple plays worse with brand x no matter the price. Use your ears and strive for syncronicity in your setup, experiment experiment experiment and trust your ears, you will reach endgame sooner than later 👍 Good work tho, kowledge can be a shortcut..

Cables are as important as any other component in your system.

If you have a concrete floor, maybe heated, try cable risers... :-) srsly

Measurements mean nothing. Which sounded the best ? That the only question.

Sorry... but blind sound test is needed ... almost a guarantee that at a micro level all cables will measure different .... but how they sound to the human ear is the real test.

Yet another "i do hear" video. Why you just wont do live blind AB test, You got camera and clearly couple guys to do it. Oh well we are still waiting someone to do it. Really do it.

If a cable sounds too black can't you just buy a grey one?

no they dont )))

lol

Yeah, except in double blind testing no one can ever tell the difference…so there is no difference.Don’t waste your money or your time. I’m surprised you’re not biamping😊.

Ridiculous

Pseudoscience.